Natural Gas Price Holds $3 – But Winter Spike Unwinds and LNG Politics Bite

Natural Gas Futures Price (NG) – $3.00 support under siege after a failed winter spike

Price snapshot and the round-trip from $7.50–$8.00 back to $3.00

Natural Gas Futures Price (NG) trades near 3.01 dollars per MMBtu, slipping about one percent on the day and hovering just above the psychological three dollar line. That level matters because it comes after a violent reversal from the January panic move, when front-month contracts and Henry Hub cash briefly shot above the seven-and-a-half to eight dollar area before collapsing. The contract has effectively returned to the same trading zone that defined most of 2024 and early 2025, only now it is testing that zone from above with momentum clearly pointing down.

Trend and moving averages – a clean bearish structure below a heavy ceiling

On the daily chart the market is unequivocally in a downtrend. Price sits under every important moving average. The fifty-day exponential average runs around 3.56 dollars, the one-hundred-day average near 3.82 dollars, the two-hundred-day exponential line around 3.67 dollars, and the longer two-hundred-day simple moving average also clusters near 3.82 dollars. All of those levels form a dense resistance band between roughly 3.55 and 3.85 dollars. As long as Natural Gas Futures Price (NG) trades beneath that band, every bounce is technically a rally inside a bear market, not a new bullish trend. Any talk of a durable base is noise until the contract can reclaim that cluster and hold above it.

Multi-year support, Bollinger bands and the $2.60–$2.80 danger zone

Volatility bands reinforce the downside bias. The Bollinger mid-line sits close to 3.99 dollars, while the lower band lies near 1.65 dollars. Current pricing is in the lower third of that envelope, weak but not yet in full capitulation. At the same time the market is leaning against a multi-year ascending trendline around the 3.00 to 3.05 dollar area that has underpinned the structure since mid-2024. A sustained break of that line would signal that the winter spike has completely unwound and that the longer-term floor is no longer respected. In that scenario, the first realistic magnet is the 2.60 to 2.80 dollar region, where earlier consolidations formed and where buyers previously stepped in during deep sell-offs.

Henry Hub cash, regional basis and global benchmarks echo the same weakness

Physical markets are confirming what the futures curve is already hinting at. Henry Hub next-day spot has traded below three dollars for the first time since mid-January, showing that the cash market no longer needs a three-handle to clear marginal molecules. Western hubs are even softer. Mountain and Pacific region prices have hit new lows for 2026 as storage there runs far above seasonal norms. At the same time, Waha pricing in West Texas has pushed deeper into negative territory on several sessions, a classic sign of local oversupply and pipeline congestion. Overseas, Dutch TTF in Europe is sitting at its lowest levels since mid-January despite storage being only about one-third full and below the five-year average, because a constant wave of LNG cargoes and weak Asian demand keep a lid on prices. All of this points in the same direction. Supply and logistics are comfortably meeting demand, and any tightness is local and short-lived, not structural.

LNG export boom, price spreads and rising political blowback in Washington

The medium-term story is not bearish on demand. It is that the export boom has already been largely priced in and is now pulling political risk into the market. Between January and November 2025, liquefied natural gas exporters drew roughly five thousand billion cubic feet of gas, more than the four thousand Bcf burned by residential users and the three thousand Bcf consumed by commercial customers. Since 2019, exports have surged about two hundred nine percent, while Henry Hub prices in 2025 ran roughly sixty-one percent higher year on year. The arithmetic behind that shift is simple. Overseas, LNG cargoes have been selling around 7.87 dollars per thousand cubic feet, while the Henry Hub benchmark has sat near 3.66 dollars, leaving a huge profit spread that keeps liquefaction plants running flat out. Capacity will only grow. North American LNG export capability is projected to climb from around 11.4 billion cubic feet per day in 2024 to about 24.3 Bcf per day by late 2027. That guarantees a strong structural call on U.S. gas. It also guarantees political scrutiny. When exports use more gas than entire residential and commercial sectors and electricity prices rise, the LNG business becomes an election topic. Permits, timelines and informal pressure on further build-out are now part of the investment risk. For prices, that means the bullish export narrative is real but no longer clean. It supports the long-term floor, yet caps the most aggressive upside scenarios.

Storage, weather and the mechanics of a failed winter bull run

Short-term, the drivers are colder and more mechanical. Late February forecasts across key U.S. demand regions look like early spring, not the back end of winter. Record weekend warmth in several load centers has cut heating demand and pulled both spot and futures down through previous support. The latest projected withdrawal from U.S. storage is around 144 billion cubic feet, compared with a five-year average close to 151 Bcf and a year-ago draw near 182 Bcf. Inventories are still being drawn, but far less aggressively than in a classic cold season, and more gas is likely to remain in storage as the shoulder period approaches. That pattern matches the price action through the entire winter. Each time weather created a short, sharp squeeze higher, storage and production capacity absorbed it. Once the forecast normalized, Natural Gas Futures Price (NG) rolled over again and made new lows. The January spike above seven-and-a-half dollars looked dramatic, but in structural terms it was a temporary weather premium that has now fully evaporated.

Spot versus futures and why the front-month looks “lost” rather than poised to break out

The tone across analyst commentary is consistent. The most widely quoted U.S. natural gas market is described as “lost” and “dead in the water,” and that description makes sense for futures even if spot benchmarks retain occasional volatility. In the spot world, a two-day cold shot or a pipeline constraint can still trigger sharp intraday moves, especially in thin regional hubs. In the futures world, front-month contracts rolling into April and beyond are pricing the average demand profile over the next few months, not a single storm. With temperatures rising, winter nearly behind the market, and storage comfortable, the futures curve cares little about isolated short squeezes. That is why tactical pieces from short-term traders repeatedly describe a wait-and-see stance. They highlight that any late winter spike is likely to be sold into rather than chased, and that the higher-probability trade is to fade exhaustion after rallies rather than to try to pick a precise bottom near current support.

Key technical levels that now define the Natural Gas Futures Price (NG) path

The chart offers a clean map. The first line in the sand is the three dollar region itself, which combines round-number psychology, the long-term trendline support, and the level where Henry Hub spot has already slipped underneath. Holding above roughly 3.00 to 3.05 dollars would keep open the possibility of a short-covering bounce. In that case, the initial test on the upside is around 3.30 to 3.35 dollars, near the latest swing highs and the area where recent attempts at recovery have stalled. Above that, the real battle zone sits between about 3.55 and 3.85 dollars, where the fifty-day, one-hundred-day, two-hundred-day exponential and two-hundred-day simple moving averages all converge. Only a break and daily close above that band would signal that bears have lost control of the larger trend. On the downside, a decisive daily close under three dollars turns prior support into resistance and points toward 2.80 dollars as the first target, followed by 2.60 and then the 2.56 to 2.55 dollar pocket traced out by last autumn’s lows. Below roughly 2.50 dollars, the market would move beyond normal correction territory into genuine capitulation, where producer behavior and rig counts would start to matter more than weather headlines.

Positioning stance for Natural Gas Futures Price (NG) – Bearish bias, Sell rallies rather than chase the floor

Against this backdrop, the cleanest stance on Natural Gas Futures Price (NG) is a bearish one with a focus on selling strength, not guessing the exact bottom. The contract trades beneath every major moving average, the three dollar floor is under pressure, Henry Hub cash has already demonstrated that sub-three pricing can clear the market, and both domestic storage and global LNG flows argue against a sudden structural shortage. At the same time, the long-term export story and the possibility of a late seasonal spike mean the risk is skewed toward sharp counter-trend pops rather than a smooth straight line lower. That combination favours using rebounds into the 3.30 to 3.60 dollar zone as opportunities to re-establish or add to short exposure, with a clear invalidation line above roughly 3.85 to four dollars, where the entire technical profile would shift. On the downside, the natural profit-taking band is the 2.60 to 2.80 dollar range, with optional extension toward the mid-two-fifties if mild weather and comfortable storage persist. In simple terms, the market is not a buy at current levels, not a passive hold, and not yet at a point where structural bulls have any proof that the downtrend has ended.

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